Pant pant pant

I am not actually hyperventilating, but if I take on one more obligation this month I will. When I look at the April calendar, I see something scrawled on nearly every square. It's nuts.

I have to give two talks--one to a national conference of copy editors, and one to the public at large; I have to host my family for Easter dinner, which means I have to grocery shop and clean the house and then cook (none of which I do particularly well); I have to work the entire weekend of April 18-19 (and Sunday will be a 12-hour day, including seven hours on a bus); I have to do all of my regular work plus all of my work for the first three weeks of May in advance; I have to (get to) make time for my Seattle sister when she's in town at the end of the month; I have to (get to) have dinner with friends next week and the following week. Oh yeah, and I have a doctor appointment.

None of these are terribly arduous obligations (except for that 12-hour Sunday); it's the sum total of them that makes me feel like breathing into a paper bag. Especially for someone like me, who loves unstructured time. Obligations always make me anxious, especially this many obligations. I have a hard time taking them as they come; I tend to stare at the crowded calendar and panic.

There's no particular reason that all of these obligations got crowded into the same month, other than coincidence.  Except... except for the obligation of getting my early-May work done in advance. That's because I won't be at work in early May.  See that picture at the top of this post?  That's where we'll be for a week.  And see this picture below? That's where we'll be for the second week.


All I have to do is slog through the rest of this month, one obligation at a time.

A note on the photos: Top photo, the Wicklow Mountains. Bottom photo, Dublin City. We're hiking for six days before heading into Dublin for a week. It will be very strange to hike without Boscoe and Riley. I wonder if we can rent a couple of dogs?